Nelly blames miscommunication for Eminem feud: “I felt like such a dick”
Nelly had a brief feud with Eminem during the early 2000s and has offered an apology to the Detroit rapper over two decades later. In a new interview, the 50-year-old explained his side of the story, admitting misinterpretation caused the issues.
At the time, Nelly was new in the hip-hop scene and wasn’t prepared to stand for anyone talking against him. But ultimately, he got it wrong.
“I misinterpreted something when I was really, really new and I want to apologise to Em,” he said on the Bootleg Kev Podcast. “But I was at a time where, I’m coming in, I’m the new guy, anybody talking… Well, somehow, I misinterpreted that he had something to say about what we were doing.”
Nelly dissed Eminem on MTV’s Total Request Live, saying he didn’t appreciate Em’s “sly little comments” and that, “I don’t play with candy. I eat M&Ms… I just don’t think [the] dude plan[s] on coming to tour to St. Louis.”
The St. Louis rapper said he “made some comments” because he was “still fresh from the Lou.” Em then called him out on the 2002 song ‘Invasion’.
They eventually crossed paths at an afterparty in Detroit, with Eminem joined by his daughter, Hailie Jade. “Somebody came and was like, ‘Yo, Em wanna come through and holler.’ He was like, ‘Yo man, my daughter…’ I felt like such a dick,” he recalled. “We were Eminem fans! And just miscommunication, man.”
He added, “He’s a dope cat, and I’m glad we got that out of the way. It’s fucked up when people that you fuck with and that you admire on a level… it’s like, dude spits…. I’m glad we squashed that. Em is a cat.”